Hold On
by elisclare
Summary: Sometimes, people come into our lives. Sometimes they are our downfall. But maybe, every once in a while, they save us too. From the world. From situations. From ourselves./ONESHOT.


**A/N: Don't know exactly what this is, but it follows Eli and Clare into the next year. It's basically how Clare spirals downward after her mother's re-marriage. I wrote it because I wanted to procrastinate on my homework, which I probably shouldn't have done.**

**Oh whale.**

**Um. Enjoy?**

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><p>The words. They fell from his lips heavily, sinking down, down, down, until they reached the floor. From there, they crawled, grudgingly, to the girl with fiery eyes and a forlorn expression. She waited for them.<p>

They were reluctant, those words were. Eli felt as if they might never register. One passing tick of the clock felt like an hour. But those words needed to be said, and said with feigned firmness, at the very least. Oh, how he hated them.

That didn't change anything, though.

"I can't do this anymore, Clare."

They hit her with such an unexpected force – she nearly fell backwards as that one sentence stopped her world to a halt. It seemed odd that despite the young boy's reluctance to say this to the girl he loved with his whole heart, he _meant_ it. He didn't want to mean it, of course, but mean it he did. He, in all truthfulness, _could not_ simply bear to be trampled on anymore.

"W-what?" Clare uttered, tears already stinging the backs of her eyes. Her face was tired, almost as tired as Eli's.

Almost.

"I said…I can't…do this, anymore, Clare," he repeated slowly, his heart beating soundly and painfully to the rhythm of his sentence. "I'm still trying to put my own self back together. I can't save you from…"

"From what?" Clare snapped, hurt, and Eli remained as patient as possible. He felt his pulse quicken a little at the hidden desperation in her tone, and willed himself to remain relatively calm. He didn't have the will to start an argument.

"From yourself."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Eli?"

It meant a lot of things. It meant that no matter how much she screwed up and fell apart, he had always given in and attempted to put her back together. It meant that although she didn't and never would give him a second chance to be there for her fully, she still needed his reassuring arms around her whenever she had a break down. It meant that no matter how long he held her, she would always eventually remove herself, and go back to her parties and her friends and that slimy kid, until she was so upset she'd break to pieces all over again. It meant that no matter how much he loved her, and wanted her to be happy, he couldn't stand and watch as she tore her once bright future into shreds. He simply could not do it.

Of course, he didn't say any of that.

"Clare, look at yourself."

She donned Eli's jacket around her cold body, otherwise only covered by a short purple strapless dress. She was slightly tipsy, and would have been smashed, had Eli not received a call and automatically dragged Clare away from yet another weekend party. He had driven the emotional girl home, considering and arguing with himself the whole way. It pained him greatly to see the tears streaming down her cheeks, but despite the familiar ache in his heart, he knew that this was a decision he had to stick with. Because, however selfish he felt at that moment, he knew deep down that while he looked after Clare, his own happiness was kept at bay. Constant worrying. Concern. Anger. Sorrow. Pity. And love.

He almost smirked at that cliché. Love was ultimately the downfall of everything. In a way, he imagined their situation similar to Romeo and Juliet. Not in a literal sense (at least, he hoped neither of them would commit suicide in the near future), but in that in the long run, love wasn't enough. It was enough to break you, and make you suffer, and beat you down. Eli could certainly account for that. But it wasn't enough to keep things, people, together. It wasn't strong enough to draw two weak people together for a prolonged length of time. He supposed he just had to live with that.

.

.

.

Originally, Clare and him had been fine. The summer started off peacefully, a sort of truce hanging in the air between the two. There was no jealousy, or anger, or any other strong negative emotion. Not to say that there was a whole lot of _good_ strong emotion, either, but a truce it was. A friendship was slowly making its way back between them. Everything had been going along nicely.

It started when he found her that night in the woods.

It was a week after school had been let out, and Jake Martin had basically invited every student at Degrassi (at least, that's what it seemed like as people pushed and shoved their way around) to his Father's cabin for a summer kick-off party. Eli didn't know if it had been approved by parents. Honestly, he didn't care. He had only gone with Drew as a favor to Adam, who was at the moment, probably sleeping and recovering from his bullet wound. Katie hadn't been able to make it, and though Adam definitely tried his hand at convincing his mother to let him out of the house, it wasn't happening.

Drew wasn't exactly the top candidate for someone Eli would call his best bud, but he found him surprisingly tolerable. He seemed quiet, now. Humble, even. Something had changed in Drew the night of prom, and as they joked and walked and talked about their few common interests, Eli could see a new maturity in Drew's eyes. They had aged a good ten years.

Eli decided that seeing someone you love on the verge of death could probably do that to you.

Yes, it was that night, that Eli eventually grew tired of the loud music and swaying bodies, and told Drew he was going for a walk on a familiar pathway in the woods.

It was that night when he found a certain girl drowning in her tears, frightened of the darkness surrounding her.

It was that night that his instincts kicked in, and without hesitation, he pulled a shivering Clare Edwards to his body and held her tightly, his lips pressing themselves into her disheveled hair, his heart aching with the need to make her feel better.

It was that night that she told him absolutely everything as they sat on the dusty pathway, and it was that night when he promised that he would never let go. His gut shrunk away from that determined, doomed promise, but his voice was clear and firm in the cool air. Because Clare Edwards, at that moment, needed some stability. And no matter how unstable Eli was, he was the only one that understood what was going on with her parents, and Jake, and everything else that had ever made her upset. It was ironic that he was the only being at that moment that could make Clare feel the tiniest bit steadier.

Eventually, the tears stopped.

Well, technically, anyway. They would make several other appearances along the winding pathway of her junior year, and Eli would always be there to dry them.

"Thank you," she had mumbled into Eli's chest, the warmth of his body heating her cheek as she breathed him in. The scent was familiar, and comforting. Despite what it might have looked like to most anyone who happened to walk by, their embrace was not romantic. The emotion stirring between the two went beyond that. And Clare didn't feel like a big girl.

She felt like a child.

Eli stroked her back lightly, nodding slightly in response as he held her closer. He wished he could make everything bad in her life disappear.

That had never been an option, though, and it never would be.

"Are you okay?" He had asked softly. Clare shook her head. Eli didn't pry, though.

He didn't have to. Within the next half hour, Clare had spilled her heart out onto the winding pathway, watching as its contents floated down an imaginary stream. It felt so good to let it out. To drown in emotion instead of hiding from it.

What neither of them knew at the time was that Eli would eventually start to drown along with her.

"I'm so sorry," he had murmured into her hair once she was finished, a flash of anger heating up his insides for a moment as Clare whispered the particular night's events into his jacket.

"You're too good for either of them," he had told her immediately. "You're perfect. It's not your fault."

Sure, he was biased.

But it was the right thing to say.

Clare Edwards inevitably smiled at his sweet words, and pretended to let it fall into the still flowing stream of confessions surrounding them soon after. She didn't, though. She held onto it, storing it away for later. She would most certainly need it.

"I'm not," she said truthfully. "But thank you, Eli. And…I'm…I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"It's okay," he responded, because it was. At that point in time, it was okay. And as they gathered themselves and headed back to the cabin, they thought that maybe it could stay that way.

As you might have concluded by now, it most certainly didn't.

Eli loved her, as stated before. He did. So much. But he left his heart alone. Neither of them were in any shape to be trying to form a relationship.

It still felt nice to hold her.

Sometimes, and only very rarely, would he let himself indulge in the moment. He would close his eyes and pretend that they were in the previous summer, simple feelings and contentedness surrounding them both. Peace. Immaculate trust. He would let the stale memory of those things close around his mind, if only for a few seconds. He felt selfish, for a reason he couldn't place his finger on, for doing so. What he didn't know was that more often than not, Clare did the same exact thing.

And she did find another way to cope with the stress of her mother's impending wedding.

The partying started, and it didn't stop. It never stopped.

No, those aren't some cheap Kesha song lyrics.

It was most certainly not a good thing.

.

.

.

No matter how much Eli was there to hold her up when she hit the ground, the fall Clare Edwards took was inevitable and impossible for anyone to stop. With a new, rather unexpected friend by her side, Clare was shown a different world by Bianca DeSousa. The world of letting go and laughing and forgetting everything. That sounded appealing.

But it got worse. Once Clare Edwards had her first drink, there was no turning back. She knew the repercussions of breaking her strict self-rules.

She also knew that Eli would be there for her when her guilt caught up to her.

Eventually, the guilt stopped. It became drowned out by the champagne, the tequila, even beer, if she felt so inclined. It went away. Eli watched from the shadows as Clare started her downfall.

By now you know that Clare found a rather stupid way to cope with all of the bullshit in her life, and that Eli tried to be there for her as best he could under the circumstances. You also know that he grew tired and bitter and frustrated, while Clare remained unchanging.

You also know that he attempted to break his promise.

.

.

.

Let us step back into the present.

"Look at myself?" Clare asked. "I'm fine, Eli!"

"No, you're not! You're heading down a dangerous road. You're destroying yourself!"

Clare laughed bitterly. "That's a tad over-dramatic, Eli. If I wanted a lecture I would have called my mother."

His arms crossed, to shield his breaking heart. "Well you won't be getting another one, Clare Edwards. I can promise you that."

"I wouldn't," she replied, her glassy eyes sad; angry. "You're apparently not so great at keeping them."

"Look who's talking."

"That was almost two years ago. You're not allowed to use that against me."

Silence.

"I love you, Clare."

Silence.

"But I will not sit here and watch you do this to yourself. I can't." It hurt too much.

A swallow.

"Then leave."

He didn't budge.

"I said leave."

He was trying, oh, he was trying, but his feet would not move.

"God fucking dammit, Eli! Go! Leave, okay? I know you want to! I'm not the person I used to be! And I don't plan on changing, so just, go. This is me now."

A flicker of hesitation. A step in her direction. A warm hand cupped her cheek as Eli pressed his forehead to hers. "This isn't you, Clare Diane Edwards, and you know it," he replied. His eyes bored into her closed ones. "I've been trying to help you for so long now."

"I know."

"And I wish that I was able to do it."

"Me too."

"But I can't."

"I know."

"Only you can do this. You can turn yourself around."

"You're still leaving me, though."

"Don't make me have to, Clare. Come on!" His voice was determined. "Just…no more, okay?"

"I can't promise that."

"Then I can't promise I'll still be here the next time."

And that, was simply that.

Gently, Eli pressed his lips to her damp cheek, trailing them to the corner of her mouth where he kissed softly, embracing her again.

"I'll try," she whispered. "I promise that I'll try as hard as I can." She hoped that would be enough. "Don't go. I need you."

The words tumbled onto the floor messily, crawling up Eli's body and ringing in his ears, the truth out in the open. Because between broken promises, drunken guys, a misplaced purity ring, and lost friendships, Eli was really all she had.

"I know."

Consequence was such a hard thing to decipher. Whether it be Eli's, for attempting to break his promise, or Clare's, for messing with is head in the first place, both of them knew that no matter where they ended up, it would be shared. Because wherever one was, the other was right beside them. Though not always necessarily how they liked it, it was needed.

Sometimes, people come into our lives.

Sometimes they are our downfall.

Bur maybe, every once in a while, they save us too. From the world. From situations.

From ourselves.

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><p><strong>Reviews are awesome.<strong>


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